Written questions by Goldsborough.

What steps the Treasury is taking to support the biological sciences research sector through the 10 Year UK Infrastructure strategy, published in June 2025.

The 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy is core to delivering the Government’s growth mission and supporting our priority growth sectors, including life sciences. The Strategy will fund at least £725 billion for infrastructure over the next decade and transform how projects are planned and delivered. This includes investment of £2.5 billion to continue delivery of East West Rail in full, enabling the growth of the Oxford to Cambridge corridor and support the world class life sciences, digital and technology sectors. In addition to the infrastructure strategy, we launched our Life Sciences Sector Plan, supported by over £2 billion of funding. The includes investing up to £600 million in the Health Data Research Service alongside Wellcome Trust, and committing up to £520 million to the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund, supporting the UK to become a medical research powerhouse and the leading life sciences economy in Europe by 2030.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of enabling parents to be paid their childcare funding using their government tax-free childcare account.

Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) provides parents with financial support with the aim of allowing parents to work and earn more. It enables parents access funding of up to £2,000 per child for children up to 11 years-old (16 and up to £4,000 if the child is disabled). In addition to this, TFC caters to self-employed parents, and parents that work irregular hours and may be unable to access traditional childcare provisions.Since its introduction in 2017, take-up of TFC has consistently increased. For the Financial Year 2024-25, approximately 826,000 families used TFC for 1,085,000 children. In March 2025, 580,000 families used TFC for 709,000 children, higher than any previous month since TFC began.

What steps she is taking to help ensure value for money in public spending.

At Autumn Budget, we launched the Office for Value for Money to realise benefits from every pound of public spending. We set out plans for a Covid Corruption Commissioner to recover public funds and we have cancelled the migration partnership with Rwanda.Through Phase 1 of the Spending Review, departments were set a 2% productivity, efficiency and savings target to ensure that every pound of taxpayer money is well spent.The next phase of the Spending Review will also have a clear focus on delivering value for money, driving efficiency and rooting out government waste.

How many estates were subject to inheritance tax in South Norfolk constituency in the (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22 financial year.

The Government publishes the latest Inheritance Tax liabilities statistics at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/inheritance-tax-liabilities-statistics. Table 12.9 of the Inheritance Tax liabilities statistics has the estimated numbers of estates liable to tax on death by UK (Westminster) Parliamentary Constituency, for the latest available tax year, which is currently 2021-22.In that year, 60 estates were liable for inheritance tax in the South Norfolk Parliamentary constituency. The equivalent number of estates in 2020-21 and 2019-20 were 56 and 48 respectively.